The under-realized potential usefulness of the UK Whole of Government Accounts

Lynn Bradley, David Heald and Ron Hodges

Public Money & Management, 2025, vol. 45, issue 6, 550-564

Abstract: After 12 years of publication, the UK Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) is shown to be a qualified success. Compared with statistical accounting, the WGA delivers greater comprehensiveness (improved fiscal transparency) and exhibits less vulnerability to creative accounting (the perimeter is less porous). Combined with fiscal sustainability projections, the WGA highlights the fragility of UK public finances even before the Covid 19 and cost-of-living shocks. Future usefulness will depend on how effectively intermediate users can penetrate the policy domain and whether WGA production can be speeded up. The four modes of government accounting (government financial reporting, statistical accounting, budgeting and fiscal sustainability projections) provide improved information. Though tempting for hard-pressed political decision-makers claiming ‘to do good by stealth’, manipulations will undermine fiscal transparency and are likely to damage fiscal sustainability. This analysis of UK WGA shows how the modes interact, but will remain separate as they have different rationales, measurements and audiences.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2023.2272055

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